P3D Mediocre Performance (or To Travel or Not To Travel?)

["Andrea Blair" <asblair@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>>>Mark Dottle wrote: Hey Andrea, when I congratulated Don Peck on his 
tremendous images around the globe, I kid you not....his comment to me 
was.. " You just got to be there, when you visit a beautiful place and 
take a few pictures....you can't go wrong...you'll win something!" 
Hum......stay home and photograph bugs or travel to exotic 
lands......?..........I better get packing. Got "people" category next 
month.<<<<

There is no doubt that images that are obviously from exotic places 
(read - not in your own back yard) catch people's attention. And I love 
looking at and taking travel images as well. But win something [with the 
implication of *always*]? This I doubt. Could it possibly be that we are 
taken with these images not only because they have been shot somewhere 
else, or maybe we take "our own back yards" (both figuratively and 
literally) for granted. Do we put as much effort in getting a nicely 
composed, interesting shot of our home town as we do of our vacation 
destinations? How many even bother to shoot their home town or near by 
landmarks (I think I go into DC about once every 5 years)? I think any 
image of any subject has potential. It may be an image that only a few 
appreciate at any one time because of either technique or subject 
matter, but it may still be a great image. There's nothing wrong with 
longing to travel to foreign lands and wanting to getting different 
views, but I don't think anyone should blame their poor performance (as 
defined by scores by judges - not *my* personal opinion of your images) 
in competitions on this. It's just not so. If you are not doing as well 
as you would like, look at the quality of your images as a whole, not 
just where they were taken. And always take what the judges say with a 
grain of salt. Just my HO, as always.

Andrea Blair
asblair@xxxxxxxxxxx

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